


Best Laid Plans

by Windymon



Series: modern!AU shenanigans [4]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Dates, Awkward Romance, Bad Cooking, First Dates, Lor'themar tries though, M/M, Not quite one-sided romance anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windymon/pseuds/Windymon
Summary: Rommath is finally coming over and Lor'themar has made the perfect plan for the evening.Alas, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men... (And elves.)





	Best Laid Plans

Tiberius was barking. Again. 

Normally it wouldn’t have bothered Lor'themar overly much, since Halduron had stressed that Tiberius was still considered a young dog and could easily be overexcited. But today was the day when Rommath was coming over for dinner and a movie, Lor'themar having swapped another weekend with Liadrin. 

"It's quite alright,” she'd said with a knowing glint in her eyes. Even years later, she seemed to know him better than he knew himself. "But remember, Salandria comes with me when we go visit Yrel's family in Stormwind later this summer."

Lor'themar was currently pouring over the notes he had made, after the suggestions made by the fishmonger at the market in the Bazaar, buthe loud barking was really interfering with his concentration. Tiberius had been trained to follow four basic commands before Halduron had given him over to their custody; sit, stay, heel and quiet, so why was the dog still barking?

Lor'themar took a deep breath before he spoke.

"Salandria, honey, is something the matter?" he called. "Why is Tiberius barking?"

Salandria poked her head in the kitchen, face flushed, the bow pulling her pale blonde hair out of her face flopping against her cheek. 

"Sorry, Daddy!" she said. "I'm just trying to teach Tiberius some dance moves for when mister Rommath comes!"

Lor'themar bit his lip.

"Could you please teach him quietly?" he asked. "Daddy is trying to concentrate here so he doesn’t...burn dinner again."

"Okay!" Salandria chirped before she disappeared.

The barking continued for a few minutes though and Lor'themar tried the trick of counting backwards slowly, while measurements and cooking times danced before his eyes.

Finally, blissfully the dog quieted down, though he could still hear music from the hallway and Salandria muttering instructions to Tiberius.

"No, no, left paw, Tiberius. Left!"

He forced the sounds out of his mind and tried once more to focus on the recipe scribbles.

"This will be great with this buttery sauce, so simple a child could make it!" the fishmonger had claimed said as he'd wrapped up the trout in brown paper.

The potatoes were finally boiling and the beginning of the sauce was slowly reducing, so he set about preparing the fish he'd bought, unwrapping it tenderly and placing it on the cutting board.

A great, wonderful piece of fish, freshly caught this morning, a great treat and staring at it Lor'themar realized he had not tried to cut and prepare a whole fish in... at least ten years? Twenty? Since the war? Why in the name of the Sunwell had he not asked the fishmonger to filet the damn thing? 

Still, he did know his way around a knife, maybe he could manage it.

Five minutes later he was nursing a cut finger and cursing silently about the extreme multitude of bones that existed within one single fish. For Light's sake, now he was getting blood all over the thing too!

"Breathe, Lor'themar, breathe," he told himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. This was just his lack of depth perception causing difficulty again. He could conquer this.

He set the knife to work again, and he'd just about removed the rest of the bones without butchering the fish too much when Salandria entered the room again, spooking Lor'themar enough that he cut himself again.

"Salandria!" he cried, picking up a washcloth to staunch the bleeding. 

"Sorry, Daddy,” she said and he immediately felt sorry for raising his voice.

"Can you please fetch the first-aid kid, honey?" he asked, managing to put a smile on his face.”I’m sorry, you just startled me.”

"Sure, Daddy,” she said, but before she scampered off she turned to look at him. "But, mister Rommath just got here."

What?

Lor'themar felt his insides freeze. This was too soon, the food wasn't quite done yet and he hadn't yet changed into something more appropriate than the stuff he'd just tossed on this morning. He turned to look at the clock ticking away happily by the refrigerator and Lor'themar felt himself go slightly queasy. How had he lost track of time this badly? He also muttered a curse at business inclined people and their punctuality, hoping that Salandria might entertain Rommath until he was more presentable.

On cue, his daughter arrived with the first-aid kit and he thanked her with another plastered on smile.

"Could you please tell Rommath dinner isn't quite ready, alright?" he asked again, trying not to let panic creep into his voice, continuing his mental tally of how he would have to make it up to the poor girl later. 

Salandria nodded and as soon as she had left the room Lor'themar dug through the kit for something to bandage his fingers wish. All he could find within short notice was a package of Happy Kitty band-aids. They would have to do.

His ears straining to pick up what was being said in the other room, he could definitely make out Rommath's voice, in conversation with Salandria, he made sure the skillet was good and hot before he put the fish in it. 

Wait, how long was he supposed to fry this for?

He rummaged around for the written instructions and when he finally found them they were spattered with blood and nearly illegible.

"I can smell something burning in here,” he heard someone say and there was Rommath, wearing a button up shirt and slacks this time, but still managing to make something casual look absolutely amazing.

The sauce!

He scrambled to check the pan and what had once been a white wine reduction was now a burned sticky mess at the bottom of it. And then the smoke from the burning fish set off the smoke alarm and Tiberius was barking again, loud and jarring to his ears.

"Fuck!" he blurted out, squeezing his hand into such a tight ball that he could feel the cuts opening up again, seeping through the blank staring faces of Happy Kitty.

"Daddy!" Salandria cried. "You said a bad word!"

The look she was giving him, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her hand resting on Tiberius shaggy neck for comfort made him feel about ten million times worse.

“I’m sorry,” Lor’themar said, feeling a heavy weight settle on his shoulders, as blood dripped down on the tiled kitchen floor.

"Oh, for Light's sake." Rommath huffed out a sigh and he opened the windows wide to let out the smoke and silenced the blaring of the smoke detector.

Rommath then pulled out a chair and made Lor'themar sit down on it, while pressing a handkerchief to his bleeding fingers, before he taking a step back to survey the destruction Lor'themar had left in his wake.

The shame and embarrassment coursing through Lor'themar was almost unbearable and when Salandria came up to him and wrapped her arms around him he felt even worse.

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I know you tried your best,” she said as he draped an arm around her small shoulders. She stayed there for a few seconds, until she disentangled herself and went up to Rommath.

"We can always call and order pizza,” she told him confidently. "We always do when Daddy makes a kitchen mistake."

Rommath offered her a wry smile. 

"I see," he said, giving Lor'themar a long contemplative look.

He turned back towards the mess again, carefully moving the burned saucepan to the sink and throwing away the fish in the trash. 

"These potatoes are actually perfectly cooked,” he said, lifting the lid to the pot. "We might be able to salvage this."

He started to roll up the sleeves of his shirt, turning once more to Salandria.

"Tell me, you do have eggs in your refrigerator?"

Salandria nodded excitedly. 

"I always have scrambled eggs for breakfast!"

"Every morning?" Rommath asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yep!" she said. "Daddy makes them every morning before school. But Mommy sometimes makes me eat oatmeal and healthy stuff..."

She scrunched up her face in disgust and Lor'themar found his heart unclenching slightly in his chest.

"I see,” Rommath said, with that same thoughtful look on his face. "Well, can you fetch the eggs then? And maybe you have some sort of chilled meats? An onion maybe or some mushrooms?"

The girl scampered over to the fridge and returned with the egg carton, balancing an onion and a piece of smoked ham Lor'themar had intended to have for breakfast the next day on top of it. Well, this was his mistake they were fixing, so he didn't object.

Instead he watched transfixed as Rommath made short work of the onion and the ham, slicing and dicing them into small bite sized pieces. Salandria, barely tall enough to see over the counter, kept an eye on her instructor from beside his elbow.

"This is a dish from down south,” he told Salandria as he worked. "They call it "Frittata", it's just a fancy word for an oven omelet with potatoes."

Rommath made a face, making Salandria giggle as she helped him cut the boiled potatoes into small chunks with a blunt knife. 

Into the skillet, slathered with a good amount of butter, it all went and a wonderful smell of cooking began to displace the acrid tang of burning in the kitchen. Finally Rommath poured in the whisked eggs, probably seasoned to perfection, Lor’themar mused, and then into the oven it all went.

"There,” Rommath said, wiping his hands on a spare kitchen towel "That shouldn't take too long to cook.

Lor'themar was close to weeping from embarrassment and relief that the night wasn’t a total failure. but fortunately he managed to push the feeling away. He'd embarrassed himself enough today.

“You look like you need this,” Rommath said and poured him a small glass of the wine Lor’themar had opened to let breathe a while ago. “If it’s any consolation, this would not have been a good wine with that fish.”

Lor’themar didn’t say that he had actually intended for that bottle to be consumed between the two of them after Salandria had gone to bed and they might have had some time to themselves, instead he mumbled a thanks and took a sip.

“I hardly have time to cook for myself,”  Rommath said, leaning against the counter. “Most of meals these days seem to be either something I pop in a microwave or coffee. This was rather enjoyable.”

“You should come cook for us more often!” Salandria said, grinning at Rommath. “Daddy can actually make good pancakes.”

“Can he now?” Rommath asked. He looked to Lor’themar, who found himself suddenly very interested in the glass of wine he was nursing.

“Yup, once he even tried to make faces,” Salandria offered. “But they ended up a bit smooshed.”

“That was for your birthday,” Lor’themar finally admitted, the wine loosening his tongue some.

“And they were pretty good, Daddy, honest,” the girl said. “With all the nuts and chocolate and marshmallows and sprinkles.”

Lor’themar held his tongue and stared into his wine glass. He was not going to get drunk and mess this up even more.

Rommath was checking on their dinner when Salandria began to tug on his sleeve.

“Do you know what Daddy is really good at?” she asked. Lor’themar suddenly pondered if perhaps getting drunk was the correct course of action after all; this was a speech he’d heard Salandria give to her class on their parents’ day. 

He was never going to be able to look Rommath in the eye again after this.

“Please do share,” Rommath said, crouching down to be at the girl’s eye level.

“He is the best at scaring away the monsters under my bed,” she said. “And when my ball gets caught in a tree, he always climbs up to get it. Even when it gets into someones backyard and there is a dog there!”

“A trespasser, huh,” Rommath said, peering over at Lor’themar, who felt a flush start on his face, spreading all the way to the tips of his ears. At the time, hopping over someone’s fence to get his daughter’s ball hadn’t really taken much thought...but now he definitely was giving it way too much.

“A big nasty dog even bitted his leg once!” Salandria said apparently trying to convey with her arms how big the dog was.

“Was he the size of your dog then?” Rommath offered, gesturing for Tiberius who had flopped down on the floor next to them. Tiberius, for his credit, seemed rather invested in Salandria’s wild gesturing with his ears perking up everytime her voice pitched in volume.

“No, he was bigger even than that!” Salandria insisted, the tone of her voice indicating that she was in full storyteller mode.

“Fascinating”, Rommath said, with no hint to his voice that he was humoring the girl. “But right now you need to tell me if you own any oven mitts for I believe this frittata is about done.”

Salandra ran off again, returning with the hawkstrider oven mitt which served double time as a hand puppet for her improvised theater plays she would put on in her room and while Rommath got the omelet out, Lor’themar pulled himself together enough to help Salandria set the table.

Later, when they had consumed the miracle Rommath had produced for them with the meager ingredients in Lor’themar’s fridge, the dishes had been cleaned, and Lor’themar’s fingers had been wrapped up in new band-aids (eliciting a grin from Rommath when he saw their selection of rather pink bandaids...Lor’themar accepted with what dignity he had left), they finally found themselves on the couch as Lor’themar had planned.

At this point, the hope was that they would watch a movie until it was Salandria’s bed time and then she would go to bed and then it would just be Lor’themar and Rommath. Together, on the couch. Alone. And there was still wine left.

Salandria, the darling girl was doing her part without knowing it, sitting next to Lor’themar, with Rommath next to her, thus when she would vacate her seat… 

“Oh, Daddy, can we watch this?” the girl asked now, flipping through the recordings on the DVR.

Oh, right, that live performance Lor’themar had recorded for her a while back. A stage performance of “The Winter Queen of the Frozen Lands”, recorded from Stormwind’s Royal Ballet Hall. 

“Huh,” Rommath said, a strangely fond smile passing over his face. “I remember when I danced the male lead in this.”

“You did?!” Salandria gasped, eyes wide with excitement. “Now we gotta watch it!”

Resignedly Lor’themar pressed play, letting out a quiet sigh when he saw the running time of it, poured himself another glass of wine and leaned back as Salandria and Rommath began a running commentary of the performance playing on the TV screen. 

“See, he botched that lift there,” Rommath said about halfway through, indicating the poor human playing the love interest. “It’s an easy thing to do, if you don’t know quite what you’re doing. I suppose it’s hard to find good talent in Stormwind these days...”

“I bet you were really amazing though,” Salandria quipped, looking absolutely star struck. Tiberius had decided to join them halfway into the first act, had not quite managed to fit with them on the couch and had decided to settle for flopping his great head in Rommath’s lap.

Lor’themar knew Rommath must be in a good enough mood, for he seemed to barely notice that the dog was getting drool all over his slacks. He managed to catch the dog’s eye for a second and Tiberius offered Lor’themar what he surmised was a sympathetic look from under the dog’s great bushy eyebrows. Neither of them were dancers, despite Salandria’s best efforts.

“Dancing looks damnably hard to me,” Lor’themar said, trying desperately to add something to the conversation going on to the right of him. 

“It does take lots of training and discipline,” Rommath said. “Alas, I don’t think I could quite pull that off now.”

He indicated with his own wine glass at the male dancer on the screen, seemingly defying gravity for a few seconds, before landing in a way that could only be described as ‘divinely elegant’. Lor’themar tried to imagine Rommath up on that stage, in those tights and performing that same feat and that set his mind to working, causing heat to gather in the pit of his stomach. 

Yet, by the time the dancers had finished their performance, the lights on the stage dimmed to the sound of applause from the audience and the end credits, added in post, began to roll, even the great heat roiling in Lor’themar’s stomach had been reduced to fading embers. The wine had definitely been a mistake, for he found that he had somehow overshot the ‘happy drunk’ stage and fallen straight into muddled sleepiness.

And Salandria, now having been allowed to be up way past her bedtime was sleepy as well. Desperate to make one last performance to Rommath to salvage any respect the other man might have had for him, Lor’themar managed to scoop the girl into his arms, with minimal amount of swaying and carried her off to her bedroom.

“G’night uncle Rom,” she mumbled against Lor’themar’s shoulder, waving at the other man. Lor’themar wondered less about the familiar epithet and more at how Rommath was actually smiling back at the girl, waving too.

Salandria was put to bed, though she whined when he tried to get her to brush her teeth, but he felt he had done a good job of this at least, when he kissed her goodnight and tucked her in with her favorite lynx plushie.

Rommath was standing by the front door when Lor’themar emerged and he felt disappointment flood through him, like an icy dip in the river. 

“I had hoped that we could talk a bit more, but…” he mumbled sheepishly, trying not to avert his gaze entirely.

“Lor’themar,” Rommath said, a stern but not unkind edge to his voice, and Lor’themar felt his heart soar at hearing his name spoken by those lips, “you are barely standing up yourself and I know, that if we return to the couch, you will be asleep in seconds.”

Lor’themar thought to deny it, feeling Tiberius gently cover his hands with slobber, but conceded with a loud sigh.

“So, let's just call it a day and leave it at that,” Rommath said, putting on his coat jacket.

“Can I at least walk you part of the way?” Lor’themar asked, hoping his desperation wasn’t showing. “I need to take Tiberius out for one last walk anyway.”

Rommath nodded and Lor’themar scrambled to clip on Tiberius leash, locking the door and then followed the other man outside. Lor’themar knew he really didn’t have long, he couldn’t leave Salandria alone in his apartment.

They walked in silence at first, watching Tiberius sniff every lamppost and park bench that they passed, lifting his leg to mark his territory here and there. 

“Despite what you might think,” Rommath suddenly began, “I did in fact have a nice time.”

Lor’themar found himself staring and couldn’t muster the energy to feel embarrassed about it. 

“You have a wonderful daughter and I enjoyed talking about my old career with her,” Rommath continued. “Much of our time spent in class is actually spent practicing, so it was wonderful to be able to reminisce with such an eager audience. You might be… deficient in the kitchen, but only the best of men can raise a child like that.”

The flush was back on Lor’themar’s face, spreading to his ears, quite possibly a blazing beacon in the harsh light of the street lights of Silvermoon. And Rommath was smiling at him, actually, properly smiling.

“How about we try this again, when Salandria is with her mother?” Rommath suggested, stopping underneath a tree, throwing shadows over his handsome face, the light reflecting in his eyes. “And this time, I will be doing the cooking.”

By the Light, how Lor’themar wished he could close the distance between them and kiss the man until they were both panting and breathless.

“Are you sure?” Lor’themar began, finally recovering his voice, resisting the tug on the leash as Tiberius tried to scent out something. “I mean, yes! Yes!”

“Then it’s settled,” Rommath said. “And I will see you before then, when you drop off Salandria at class this week. Perhaps you should try to not hover by the door from now on?”

Lor’themar felt new heat rush to his face.

“Good night then, Lor’themar,” Rommath said and continued on his way, leaving Lor’themar gaping in his wake.

Yet inside his breast, Lor’themar felt a warm hope he had not felt since the day Salandria had been born. 

Whistling to himself, he made Tiberius give up his search for that elusive squirrel, and together they strolled back home, the light in Lor’themar’s heart driving him on.

  


**Author's Note:**

> That fish might give him more scars than the Scourge did.  
> Also, I apologize for the lame "Hello Kitty" reference.
> 
> Shout out/love to the Disaster Elves people!  
> Please look forward to more interesting AU stuff from them than my awkward romance fics. :P  
> (This would be the semi-prequel to more exciting stuff.)


End file.
